


The Extinguished Flame

by thuvia ptarth (thuviaptarth)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode Related, Episode: s02e21 All Hell Breaks Loose, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-05-13
Updated: 2007-05-13
Packaged: 2017-10-03 04:38:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thuviaptarth/pseuds/thuvia%20ptarth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A coda; a conversation</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Extinguished Flame

The living burn a little too bright, or maybe that's just Dean. Bobby's already gone by the time you think to check; your attention's kind of been elsewhere.

"Sam," the girl says gently, "it's time to go."

Your brother tilts up a beer bottle and swallows; his throat and hands glow in the dusky room, as luminous as an overexposed photo. Ghosts shimmer behind him, so many ghosts, so many more than either of you ever knew: Cold Oaks ghosts in coarse homespun, psychics in jeans and modern coats. You don't recognize any of them, but then you're not in the room where Ava and Andy died. The ghosts don't seem to see you, and they don't do much, just stare out the window or huddle in the corner or open their mouths like they're screaming without making a sound. You think they may not be the kind of ghosts you know.

"You're not a ghost," you say to the girl, not looking away from Dean. He paces from your body to the window, and back again, and back again.

"I never said I was." She's pretty, in a quiet way; her voice is very kind.

"I know what you are."

She lays a hand on your shoulder. It just feels like a hand. "I figured you did."

Dean hurls the bottle into a corner and you flinch at the explosion of shards, the sour smell of cheap beer. He collapses into the chair next to your corpse and buries his face in his arms, and then he makes this awful sound, this terrible grinding sound, as if each sob has to wrench its way out of his lungs, scrape its way through his choked throat.

"Dean," you say. You're over his shoulder, not even knowing how you got there. "Dean."

"He can't hear you," the girl says.

You press your hand to your brother's back, just below the hunched shoulders. You don't know what you expected, but all you feel is the worn softness of flannel, the familiar strength of muscle and bone. The unfamiliar shudders. You'd wanted him to cry after your father died. Until he finally did, you'd thought you'd wanted him to cry. It had been so long since you'd seen Dean cry that you'd forgotten how terrifying it was.

"It's not your fault," you say, as if desperation were enough to get through. "It's not your fault, Dean." You kneel beside him with one arm over his back, pressing your cheek against his shoulder, and it feels as wrong as it did when you held him up in the hospital doorway watching your father die; in your head, your brother has never been smaller than you. He burns fever-hot--or no; you're cold; you must give off a warning chill. But if Dean feels it through the sobs, he gives no sign.

"Sam," says the girl, and beneath the gentleness of her voice she is as inexorable as the turning of the earth. "There's nothing you can do for the living. Nothing the living can do for you."

Your eyes burn, but you raise your head to look at her over your brother's shaking back. "That wasn't true for my mom."

"You don't belong here," the girl says. An army of ghosts masses behind her, formless and glimmering as the sea.

"There's nowhere else I belong," you say steadily.

You put both arms around your brother and tuck your chin in over his bristly head, enfolding him in an armor he can't feel and wouldn't want. Dawn is brightening the room, a murky unbeautiful light.

"It's okay," you whisper to your brother, "it's going to be okay," and you don't notice the reaper when she goes.


End file.
